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Gurué fire, August 2020 Gurué

Out · last detection 14 Aug 2020, 11:12 UTC

The fire started on 8 August 2020 in Gurué, Mozambique, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,660 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 598th largest in Zambézia since 2016 (of 842 with a page). Number 127 in Mozambique in 2020, of 193.

Burnt area
3,660ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
8 Aug 2020 – 14 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
8 Aug
2020
Heat detections
125
in a single hotspot: 76 MW
Danger at start
18
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
925MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Aug14 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

26°high
56km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,641 ha in 2016, 1,483 ha in 2017, 1,191 ha in 2018, 2,111 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,133 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Gurué where it started
    3,678 ha reached on 7 Aug
    0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
8 Aug 19.5 °C 60 % 56 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18
9 Aug 21.0 °C 29 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
10 Aug 24.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
11 Aug 24.6 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Aug 23.7 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Aug 26.0 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
14 Aug 23.2 °C 41 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
15 Aug after 24.3 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
16 Aug after 27.4 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Aug after 27.5 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Aug after 27.1 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Aug after 28.4 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Aug after 25.2 °C 39 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Aug after 25.2 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Aug after 22.2 °C 47 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
23 Aug after 21.7 °C 48 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
24 Aug after 26.1 °C 35 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 1 Aug 2020
After · 21 Aug 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 125Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mozambique ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gurué fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 August 2020 and 14 August 2020: 7 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,660 hectares (36.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gurué (3,678 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.0 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mozambique (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.